'Tipper managers need education'
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• Educating management on how tc make use of, and appreciate, trainee personnel is vitally important if training is tc have the desired results. This is the opinioi of Mr W. J. Gibson, manager of the Bristol Tipper Group Training Association. He told CM this week that although group members understood the benefits of training, many men who had been privately trained found difficulty in retaining their jobs with non-group members.
Drivers at the BTGTA; for example, are trained to drop the tipper body before they move the vehicle; they are instructed on how to move a vehicle safely from soft ground; they are required to leave the cab and ensure the back door is secured before moving off and to ensure that there are no foreign bodies lodged between the twin rear wheels. Some employers regarded these precautions as time-wasting and saw them eating into their profits, said Mr Gibson. They, therefore, preferred to employ drivers who were untrained in these techniques but who were in the end less sympathetic to the vehicle.
The Bristol school has an 80 per cent pass record for its tipper trainees and 100 per cent pass for its low-loader trainees. Courses last five or 10 days, according to trainees' experience, and the average cost ol training a man is approximately £400, although the charge to the operator is very much less.
All of the GTA's instructors are ex-Service driving instructors. There are three from the RCT, one from the RAF and an ex-guardsman.